When speaking a few months ago, author and campaign organiser, Alan Gibbons, used South Korea as an example of a country where libraries are widely used despite being so technologically advanced (one of the government's arguments in the UK is that people don't need libraries as much due to the advances in technology).
I was asked to write this article as a voice from Korea in order to give an insight into reading and literacy here.
This is the article:
Why I Support the Libraries.
For the past five years I have taught as a middle school teacher in Seoul, South Korea, before which I worked as support staff in British secondary school in my hometown, Bolton. The two schools, despite being similar in terms of size, students’ age and socio-economical backgrounds are vastly different. Of the four hundred plus students I see through my classroom doors each week, all of them are literate. Even my students in the lowest ability groups are able to read some words and phrases in their second language, English. This was a very different picture in the British school, where a number of students left each year aged 16 (after 12 years in education) unable to read or write in their first language.
Such an obvious dichotomy, begs the question, ‘Why?’ How is it possible in one of the richest countries in the world for students go through 12 years of education without being able to read when it is, as is shown in Korea, entirely possible for it to be avoided? It would be hard to find someone who would argue that reading isn’t valuable (David Cameron himself claimed that it is literacy which “pulls people out of poverty”), but it is the kind of reading that is valued which should be brought into question. Reading extensively for the purpose of pleasure or personal interest is far more valuable than classroom texts or academic articles, which are forced on the reader. And yet there is little time for this extensive reading to be adopted in the heavily academic curriculum.
When I was a child it was during my visits to the local library that the fantastic world of books and the joy of reading became so precious. As a primary school student, along with my class, I visited our local library once every fortnight where each student was allowed quiet reading time and a chance to browse the books. We were, at times, also visited by writers and poets who spoke to us with such passion and enthusiasm that it was impossible not to be captivated. As I remember it, we took full advantage of our time in the library with almost all of us taking the maximum number of books. I was often back there before the two weeks were over swapping the books again; something which, as the library sat right around the corner from my home was entirely possible for me to do as a child.
My own secondary school had a beautiful library on site but it there was no time allotted in our timetable to visit it as just a reading class, and the school where I worked had no library on site at all. My South Korean middle school allocates one period a week where students visit the library and are encouraged to spend the time reading any book of their choice. As one forty-five minute period is not enough time for reading, the vast majority of students continue reading in their own time. It seems simple to me that if schools can schedule a time, as they used to, for children to visit libraries in their school day then they will not only become interested in reading, but also familiar with their local libraries and visit them in their leisure time.
Why though do people need to be in a library when, as is often argued, they can find the same books online? Well, like is the case in South Korea (which is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world), they are a quiet place for people to study, a safe space for friends to meet or simply a home for people to relax away from the pressures of everyday life. Libraries in South Korea are well-maintained and welcoming, and on any given day (at any given time), one can enter a Korean library to find it packed full of people of all ages. As teenagers chatter and swap books, strangers sit beside one another, scattered around the tables and floors lost in their own journeys. The libraries are not full because of the heavy work load laid on students, who are in classrooms up to 14 hours a day, but despite it. It is not a rare sight to see middle school students sitting at lunch time reading quietly to themselves or to see students discussing and swapping books.
There is a real sense of community that is felt in a library which one struggles to find symmetry with in any other place. And this feeling is universal. You can visit any number of libraries in the UK and find different strangers engaged in the same activities. Libraries provide communities with a tangible centre which cannot be found in the isolation of cyber space.
What public libraries offer is a space for people to escape from their classrooms, workplaces or even real life. Reading away from the restraints of a classroom or the pressures inside the home allows for escapism, encourages creative thought, and the freedom to build and develop one’s own interests; none of which can be developed inside a classroom, where what is read is dictated. If a person only reads for the purpose of education they are restricted in what they can take from the process. When reading becomes an exercise for answering tedious comprehension questions where students simply ‘pick out’ information to complete worksheets and prepare for exams, the very act of reading is diminished. Reading for pleasure alters how a person interacts with what is being read. It not only teaches and inspires, it allows autonomy of the individual to decide what is relevant, what is interesting and, what is important to them and their world. What other space in a child’s life (or indeed an adult’s) can this be found?
The times I spent in libraries as a child (and adult) are some of my most cherished memories. The characters in the books I read were as real to me as any classmate, teacher or friend. The hours spent on adventures and journeys allowed me to be thoughtful and creative and build a world outside of my reality. The place a person creates inside themselves runs as far as the imagination allows and can certainly not be mirrored inside a classroom, whilst watching T.V. or online. This is what the libraries give to people, and to take this away is to remove the very point at which a community is built.
“I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."
— Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
— Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
